The NYPD has devised a new strategy it believes will send record-low crime rates dropping even further – by fast-tracking rookies to patrol “hot spot” areas, The Post has learned.

The new plan calls for police brass to throw out the department’s traditional practice of assigning officers fresh out of the Police Academy directly to specific precincts.

Instead, starting with the class graduating in January, all 2,409 newly minted cops are expected to be assigned directly to each of the borough commanders.

There are eight borough commanders – two each in Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens and one each in The Bronx and Staten Island.

They will assign the rookies to walk beats in the most crime-ridden areas. The borough commanders will be able to move the rookies from precinct to precinct in their commands, depending on the crime rates in various neighborhoods.

“The plan is geared towards precincts where there has been an increase in shootings and robberies,” a police source said.

“The plan is that by putting these cops out on the foot posts, it will be a deterrent to criminals and help decrease crime.”

For instance, Brooklyn North and The Bronx are expected to get a larger share of the new cops than the other commands because violent crimes numbers are higher there.

The city’s overall crime rate this year is down 6 percent compared to last year and the murder rate is down 12 percent.

Cops expect murders – considered the most accurate indicator of crime – to dip below 600 for the first time since 1963, when 548 homicides were recorded.

And new statistics released this week by the FBI show the Big Apple’s crime rate overall is the lowest among the nation’s 25 largest cities.

New York City ranks between Provo, Utah, and Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., in terms of its crime rate per 100,000 people, the statistics show.

“You have to go back 40 years to have the city as safe as it is now,” Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said Tuesday at City Hall.

“That’s when Mickey Mantle was in center field and [then-mayor] Bob Wagner was in this building and Hershey bars cost a nickel,” said the commissioner, who has said he wants to pull crime rates even lower.